Articles By Telemarketing Consultant Gene Gerwin & Others

Having worked in boiler-room telemarketing agencies early in my career, I got first-hand experience with high-pressure telemarketing tactics. What you do is overwhelm your prospects with glib and manipulative talk to get good short-term results. You will see this commonly in business-to-consumer telemarketing where the goal is a quick sale. The telemarketing scripts are written so […]

I didn’t always plan on becoming a telemarketing consultant… My interests in college where philosophy, history, and psychology (although I took a last-minute detour into computer science). Fresh out of college, I got my first taste of telemarketing back in 1991 as an independent legal services representative. Working from my home office, I used the […]

In case you weren’t aware, the Federal Trade Commission maintains a document of legal does and don’t at https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/complying-telemarketing-sales-rule. As of June 13, 2016, it is no longer legal for call centers to accept payments from consumers by remotely-created checks, remotely-created payment orders, cash-to-cash transfers, and cash reload mechanisms. So, if use any of these for […]

I’ve said it before, but I just don’t understand why obvious telemarketing scams get a free pass from law enforcement for years. In this case, a boiler room type call center in Culver City, CA would call charities, associations and businesses claiming to be their regular supplier of printers and printer toner. They’d take orders for re-supplies […]

The folks at MarketingExperiments are at it again- this time developing a formula for writing headlines. Masterful headline writing is a highly prized skill in the copywriting world. Can it really be reduced to a formula? While MarketingExperiments doesn’t reveal their formulas in detail (except in their paid training), I think we can figure it […]

NBC Announcer Test. Radio Central New York (NBC) in the 1940s used this as a test for prospective radio talent. They judged the performance on clarity, enunciation, diction, tonality and expressiveness.

I found a voice over professional on YouTube reading it. It’s encouraging for us mere “voice mortals” to see a pro also struggle a little with this:

I’ve started using this to screen agents and found it to be a pretty effective tool. I have candidates call a message-taking-only voice mail box and record their reading.

One hen

Two ducks

Three squawking geese

Four Limerick oysters

Five corpulent porpoises

Six pairs of Don Alverzo’s tweezers

Seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array

Eight brass monkeys from the ancient, sacred crypts of Egypt

Nine apathetic, sympathetic, diabetic, old men on roller skates with a marked propensity towards procrastination and sloth

Ten lyrical, spherical, diabolical denizens of the deep who haul stall around the corner of the quo of the quay of the quivery, all at the same time.

Notes: “quay” is pronounced “KEE”

Advanced Option 1: Complete the whole reading in a single breath without sounding rushed or unclear.

Advanced Option 2: Add one line at a time and restart from the top, like this:

One hen
One hen, Two ducks
One hen, Two ducks, Three squawking geese
etc.

We’ve completed updating the database of U.S.-based call centers. The total is now 227- more than you will find at Yahoo or DMOZ. For each telemarketing company, we verified they had a functioning website and determined the nature of their services (inbound, outbound, B2C, B2B, multinational, etc.). If you work for or own one of the listed call centers, feel free to claim your listing and we’ll give you edit access so you can add more detailed information.

Veteran telemarketers will tell you that nothing is more valuable than the experience of making thousands of calls, and they’re right. By regularly speaking to prospects, leads and customers, telemarketers will find their own unique style. But whether seasoned professionals or fresh-faced new-starts, there are some essential lessons every telemarketer must learn… Pause for effect […]